Russian on Space Trip Has a Heart Problem

AP

Published: July 26, 1987

MOSCOW, July 25—
A Soviet astronaut who has spent nearly six months in space has developed a potentially serious heart problem and will be brought home next week, Soviet officials said Friday.

The announcement came shortly after the docking of a three-man Soyuz TM-3 orbiter with the Mir space station, where Aleksandr Laveikin and Yuri Romanenko have been living since early February.

Viktor D. Blagov, the deputy flight director, said at a news conference here that Mr. Laveikin, who is 35 years old, had developed an abnormal electrocardiogram at some point in the flight.

''It may be serious - it may not be serious,'' Mr. Blagov said.

Tass, the Soviet Government press agency, reported earlier Friday that Mr. Laveikin, who is on his first space mission, would be replaced at the end of the six-day docking mission with one of the Soviet astronauts who arrived in the orbiter, Aleksandr Aleksandrov, 44. The capsule carried two Soviet astronauts and Syria's first man in space, Mohammed Faris, 36.

The orbiter was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday. At the end of its six-day mission, it will bring back Mr. Laveikin, Mr. Faris and the Soviet astronaut Aleksandr Viktorenko, 40. ----

DAMASCUS, Syria, July 25 (Reuters) - Mr. Faris, the first foreigner to visit Mir, sent greetings to all Arabs today in a live televised message from the Soviet space station as it passed above the Middle East.